Saturday, August 10, 2013

Nicholas Payton calls out the BDS'ers on their Hypocrisy

Having failed to convince Barbra Streisand, Cliff Richards, Alicia Keys and so many more to boycott Israel, the BDS holes have focused their cross-hairs on participants in the Eilat's Red Sea Jazz festival.

Though highly unlikely, let’s say my audience in Eilat would be
comprised of nothing but Zionist oppressors: Has anyone thought that
perhaps those who most need to hear love in action through music are
the people who think it’s cool to fuck over others? Why should all
attendees of the festival be punished for the actions of a few assholes
in power? Sometimes you’ve got to go into the belly of the beast to make
progress. If you always boycott and refuse to use your art to heal
those most in need, what’s the point? Not only am I an artist, but I’m a
cultural diplomat. It is my job to open people’s hearts and minds all
over the world through the power of art.

By your way of thinking, I would never play another jazz festival or
club again. Jazz itself is musical apartheid. It’s the whitewashing of
Black music. It was stolen from Black people who aren’t still fully
credited, and to this day, is not controlled by Blacks. White people
make most of the money and the very existence of the White race—which
enables White supremacy and privilege—is apartheid to all people of
color. So any time I play a gig anywhere, I am serving The Colony. It’s
all dirty money. If I refused to play jazz venues or refused to teach at
jazz schools, I would be doing the ancestors and the music a
disservice. So whereas for you, “Eilat” may be a name that has an
oppressive connotation, to me, the name “JAZZ” has the same effect.

I refuse to boycott Eilat and I refuse to boycott jazz venues, for
your reasons, so those of you who are trolling me online about my
decision to play the Red Sea Jazz Festival are just wasting your time
trying to call me out. How much do any of you know about who I am,
anyways? How many of my recordings do you own? How many of my shows have
you attended? You appear to only be interested in using Nicholas Payton
for your own personal, political narrative. I write my own stories. I
don’t allow others to define me and will not be pressured into feeling
guilty about using my life passion to instill more beauty in the world.

Thanks, Nicholas Payton for calling out the hypocrisy of the BDS movement, and how counter-productive it is to target art and music for cultural boycotts.

The BDS holes, including social media regulars Tali Shapiro, Sylvia Posadas and Emma Rosenthal remain undaunted and continued to stalk Payton using a variety of sock-puppet accounts after their own accounts were banned